13 March 2015

Oxymoron

You probably
already know what an oxymoron is—a terribly good figure of speech in which two
contradictory words or ideas are juxtaposed for rhetorical effect. Like
Shakespeare’s “witty fool”, Chaucer’s “hateful good”, Tennyson’s “falsely
true”, Hemingway’s “scalding coolness”, Milton’s “darkness visible”, or Cameron’s “True Lies”. But you
were probably already unconsciously aware of that. Like an open secret. Or old
news.

A light heavyweight. And some dry ice.

But you might not know that the word oxymoron itself, appropriately enough, is an oxymoron. The oxy– part (the same as in words like oxygen, paroxysmand peroxide) comes from the Greek word for “sharp” or “acrid”, oxys. The –moron part (the same as in, well, moron) comes from the Greek word for “dull”, moros. So an oxymoron is literally a “sharp-dull” turn of phrase.

There’s
something fantastically oxymoronic about oxymoron being oxymoronic. But it’s
certainly not alone. That Greek word moros,
for instance, is also the root of sophomore,
the first part of which is the Greek word for “clever” or “wise”, sophos. So a sophomore is literally a “wise-dull”
person.

Similarly, if you play the pianoforte
then you’re playing the Italian words for “soft”, piano, and “loud”, forte—the name was
deliberately coined because the piano was the first keyboard instrument that
allowed the player to change the volume of what he or she was playing. And the preposterous
meaning of preposterous comes from
the fact that it combines two entirely contradictory Latin words: prae, meaning “before”, and posterus, meaning “after” or
“subsequent”. So something described as preposterous is literally as absurd as something that has its “before after”.

And then there are words like bittersweet, and speechwriting. The word bridegroom literally means “bride-man”. Firewater is an old name for strong liquor. And how can you really
have a ballpoint when balls don’t
have points? Or be a spendthrift when thrifty people don’t spend? And how exactly
can you be wholesome? Feel free to
add your own oxymoronic examples to this list.